


For Once In My Life

by unpeudeciel



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-21
Updated: 2015-05-21
Packaged: 2018-03-31 12:33:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3978187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unpeudeciel/pseuds/unpeudeciel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I'm tired, Matt. I'm tired of fighting this thing." Some wine, some records, and a bit of soul-spilling. Post season one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Once In My Life

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own anything. Thanks to the great B.B. King and Stevie Wonder for inspiration, and to K for the beta. 
> 
> Also, Dear Readers, one comment helps fight insecurity that comes from not having written anything for years. I hope you enjoy this!

She takes a couple of deep breaths and reaches to ring the door bell, but he opens before she has a chance to do it. Of course he does.

“Claire.”

“Matthew.”

It’s nearly half a year since she took her vacation and went to visit her sister. She’s probably seen him a dozen times since, on quiet, tense mornings, with him bleeding on various available surfaces and her fixing him up just like she promised, but hating herself for letting it go on like that. He tried to flirt on a few occasions although not very convincingly, seemingly aware that they’re too far gone, so his recent suggestion of getting a drink surprised her.

“I wasn’t sure if you were going to show up,” he says, letting her into the apartment.

“I wasn’t sure either,” she sighs in reply and passes him a bottle of wine. “Red,” she explains shortly.

“Thanks. So what changed your mind?”

She sees him lick his lips in a nervous gesture that’s both annoying and strangely attractive. She takes him in, the tense shoulders, light blue shirt, his hair done too neatly for her liking. For a brief, scary second, she wonders if she actually prefers him all beaten up and bloody, but she quickly puts that thought away.

“I’m tired, Matt,” she admits. Of only seeing him when he needs her hands to fix him, of being worried every night when he doesn’t call, of patching him up and having to restrain herself from touching more of him. “I’m tired of fighting this thing.”

“Me too.”

“I don’t think you get to say that,” she says pointedly because he doesn’t understand half of it.

“Because I told you not to fall in love and then didn’t follow my own advice?”

She has to hand it to him, this shuts her up and she stares at him for a moment. Bold and to the point, and it takes her a second to take in the meaning of his words. She’s cursing the fact that she can’t control her heartbeat, and cursing him for being able to hear it. “Precisely,” she agrees, as calmly as she can.

“What do we do now, then?”

She throws her hands in the air because she really wishes she knew the answer to that. “Well, for starters, I think we finally have that drink.”

 

* * *

 

“You weren’t kidding. About liking records,” Claire says, sipping her wine and looking closely at the shelves with vinyls neatly stacked on them. Alphabetised, she notices.

“I prefer them. To digital, I mean. It’s nice to have another dimension to the music.”

“How do you get them though? I’m guessing you don’t touch them to know what’s on them.”

Matt chuckles response. “No, I’m completely helpless in that respect. Foggy helps me pick them, it’s kind of a tradition we have. Besides, a lot of them used to be my dad’s.”

“I see. Was he the Journey fan?” she teases lightly and gets a laugh.

“He was. He’d listen to them when he was pumping up for fights.”

“The Ramones?”

“That would be me.”

“Of course. How about Cyndi Lauper?” she asks, pulling a face.

“Yeah,” he scratches his forehead, “you can’t always trust Foggy.” He walks up to the record player, clearly more expensive than any other object in the apartment. “Pick something,” he tells her as his arm reaches out.

With a small smile she pulls out an old Motown record and then watches his fingers as he slowly and precisely takes it out of its sleeve and puts on the player, setting the needle on. It’s such a display of gentle tactility that she suddenly feels hot and gulps down her drink.

  
It’s easy and fun, a combination she sometimes forgets they are capable of. They listen to some Kate Bush, then Van Morrison, and by the time he puts on Stevie Wonder she’s sufficiently tipsy and at ease that she can’t help but break out a couple of moves.

“Are you... dancing?” Matt asks, frowning.

“Of course,” she answers matter-of-factly. “So should you,” she says, her hips and arms moving to the rhythm.

“I don’t dance, Claire.”

“Well, you certainly fight as if you did,” she says with a small sigh and turns away from him, immediately regretting the comment. She thought tonight could be an attempt to separate themselves from their dawn encounters.

He breaks the pause, apprehensive and thoughtful. “I’ve been to clubs with Foggy before but it was weird. Stressful.”

“How so?” she frowns at him in return and passes him a drink.

“Too loud. Crowded. Hot. Doesn’t smell great either,” Matt scrunches up his nose and she shakes her head, breaking into a smile.

“In that case, drink up,” she commands after a moment. “Tonight you find out that dancing is fun.”

“No, no, no,” he grins, pulling his arm out of Claire’s grasp, but taking a good few sips of his wine like she told him to. “You’re too good at it.”

“Oh, please,” she sniggers, and watches him as he walks up towards the door and switches off the light, the one he turned on for her benefit in the first place.

“You are unbelievable. I can’t see shit now.” It’s a lie - the screen behind the window leaves the apartment awash in dancing lights and she can see his shadow all too well as he puts another record on. “Ah. The King of Blues. Nice,” she drawls and starts moving her shoulders, closing her eyes. The tune is all slow and sad guitar sounds, and she frowns at him lightly just as he chuckles.

“That’s not the song I was going for. I promise I’m not trying to tell you that the thrill is gone.”

“Leave it on.”

She keeps moving, trying to ignore the unnerving way he’s just standing there, facing her, his expression unreadable to her. Eventually he extends his arm and she takes it, taken by surprise when he lifts their arms and twirls her, then he pulls her closer. She laughs out loud at this.

“You are _such_ a liar, Matt. Where the hell did you learn to be so smooth?”

He grins at her, the same cheeky grin that makes her so mad every time. “I’m lucky to be naturally quite coordinated, I guess.”

“You are something else, Murdock,” she says and gives in to the blues.

 

* * *

 

The music is still playing, something quiet and wistful, but the dancing has stopped, the mood has passed. He’s perched on the back of his couch and she’s leaning into his chest, feeling the weight of his arms around her waist and his breath tickling the back of her neck. She’s not quite sure how they’ve gone from goofing around and laughing to this heavy silence in very close proximity, but it may have to do something with the way he kissed her a moment earlier, hot and impatient and tender. They’ve crossed a boundary and now the weight of reality is crushing down on them.

“How did it get so complicated?” he asks, his fingers fidgeting and playing with hers.

She sighs. “It’s always been complicated, Matt.”

Silence.

His next words sting.

“Ask me to stay away, Claire. Just say it.”

She makes a half-turn to examine his face, focused and serious. There’s an amber light dancing in his eyes, and she suddenly feels tears rising in her throat. She manages to keep her voice steady but he probably knows anyway. “If I could do that I wouldn’t be here tonight. You know that.”

“I can’t put you at risk. Again. Not after the last time.”

“Well, I’m not exactly a fan of the idea either but I also know that if I wasn’t there some of those times you’d be dead right now, and that scares me more.”

“I can’t ask-“

“Jesus, Matt!” she interrupts him, infuriated. “You’re not asking me anything. I am making the choice, and I’d say by now I know what I’m getting into! So if you actually feel about me like you said you do, you won’t _fucking_ reject me again because you think it’s best for me!” she finishes and clenches her fists to stop herself from shaking. She hears a muffled ‘shit’ from him because his hands are covering his face.

“I haven’t apologized for that, have I?”

“No, you haven’t,” she huffs, but her voice is turning softer.

“I’m an idiot. I was trying to make a judgement that wasn’t selfish but I hurt you in the process. And I’m sorry.”

She wipes her face with her hands and exhales. “Apology accepted.”

“What about your doubts? About me and what I do?” he asks after an instant.

“I guess,” she raises her hand to run her fingers through his hair, messing it up a bit. “...At this point I trust you to do the right thing.”

She lets him envelop her in a hug, cling to her, and buries her face in his shoulder in reciprocation. There’s a kiss on the top of her head.

And she hears those three earnest, bittersweet words that have come to mean so much more than they are.

“Thank you, Claire.”


End file.
